Herald News: Letters, Feb. 1, 2013

President Obama is shepherding and overseeing the decline of the American economy, sapping all hope from its citizenry, especially young people. I am a 62-year-old university-educated U.S. Navy veteran, but cannot think of retiring, and furthermore have to dip into savings to pay bills and Obama's higher taxes.

This last quarter resulted in negative economic growth because of his confiscatory tax-and-spend policies. It is Obama's miserable economy and the Democrats to blame. Didn't he learn any economics in school? Is he deliberately trying to punish and cause misery to middle-class working Americans?

Although I am currently working in a small electronics company, 50 percent dependent on defense pending, I took a pay cut to stay employed and prospects and hopes are dimming for 2013. The effect of Obama's policies will devastate small business and incomes and will stagnate the economy. And the cause is his mandatory, unaffordable, "Obamacare" law, overspending, uncertainty, his arrogance and Democratic intransigence. And he blames House Republicans for not adding fuel to his fire. Give me a break.

Obama is a disaster and should be impeached for mismanagement. I implore him to resign. His State of the Union message would be a good time to announce it.

Mario R. Lembo

Hawthorne

A larger tale

of greed and money

How anyone could even begin to forgive Lance Armstrong for his lying and cheating is beyond understanding.

One wonders, now, how many winning athletes we admired have cheated in the same way. I cannot name a sport where some form of devious scheming wasn't involved. Even horses are doctored to win — dogs, too. In all the muck and mire, the culprits are always greed and money.

When millions are offered by various companies to the winners, it is difficult for the athlete of mediocre talents to turn away "a good deal." The real danger is that if drugs and performance enhancers become the norm, then athletes will be nothing more than bought slaves of these drug inventors.

I believe that athletes who gained fame and fortune in their various sports by ulterior methods should give those trophies and medals to the corporations that backed them. After all, could they have won with-out them?

Phyllis Sembos

Emerson

'Special interests are

flooding our elections'

Three years after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, American democracy is in danger. Citizens United made it possible for the wealthiest Americans, corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway our elections at the expense of average voters.

In New Jersey, non-candidate, non-party groups like Super PACs spent more than $3 million to sway the outcome of our House and Senate races; an incredible 99 percent of this spending came from out-of-state groups working to undermine the electoral influence of New Jerseyans. And if every one of the 3.2 million households in our state had given just $100 to a political campaign of their choice, it would have taken only 32 of the top donors to Super PACs to match these small contributions dollar for dollar.

Special interests are flooding our elections with unlimited money to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We must create fair campaign finance rules that guarantee transparency, put in place sensible political contribution limits, and set up a system of incentives that encourages small donors.